Integrated Risk Management (IRM) is repeatedly underfunded for a structural reason: leaders keep forcing IRM into an ROI construct that demands a single, auditable chain of causality, while IRM is designed to distribute value across multiple domains at once. In this episode, Ori Wellington and Sam Jones explain why ROI framing collapses into assumption-stacked narrative under CFO scrutiny, and why risk leaders need a finance-compatible alternative that remains decision-grade.

The episode’s answer is a disciplined shift: evaluate IRM with cost/benefit analysis, and label the benefit streams as dividends. Dividends are distributed outcomes that improve enterprise performance and resilience without requiring false precision in a single attributable cash-flow line.

Source: RTJ Bridge (Wheelhouse Advisors Premium Research)

What executives should take from this episode

• ROI is the wrong container for IRM. ROI demands strict attribution. IRM delivers system-level uplift where attribution is inherently weak.
• Use dividends to quantify value in decision-grade terms:
  • Efficiency dividend (cycle time and throughput improvements), with explicit discipline on what becomes realized value.
  • Loss mitigation dividend (reduction in expected loss), modeled through scenarios, frequency, severity, and control effectiveness assumptions.
  • Trust dividend (friction removed), increasingly the gating factor for velocity in an AI-era operating model.
• Avoid the credibility traps embedded in legacy GRC value calculators. They pull the conversation toward compliance throughput, invite silo double counting, and emphasize backward-looking activity counts rather than continuous assurance.

If IRM is positioned as a strategic capability, its value model must be positioned the same way. Build a dividend-based business case that finance can challenge and still accept, then use it to protect and accelerate the enterprise’s highest-leverage investments.

Podcast Episode Chapters

0:00 The ROI Mismatch Problem
3:58 Defining Finance-Grade ROI Rigor
7:03 Why IRM Defies Singular Attribution
12:03 Introducing The Dividends Model
15:48 Efficiency Dividend And Its Limits
21:48 Capacity Redeployment Vs Trapped Time
25:58 Quantifying Loss Mitigation Credibly
31:48 Presenting Ranges And Confidence
36:03 The Trust Dividend As Friction Removed

Wheelhouse Advisors’ YouTube channel delivers fast, executive-ready insights on Integrated Risk Management. Explore short explainers, IRM Navigator research highlights, RiskTech Journal analysis, and conversations from The Risk Wheelhouse Podcast. We cover the issues that matter most to modern risk leaders. Every video is designed to sharpen decision making and strengthen resilience in a digital-first world. Subscribe at youtube.com/@wheelhouseadv.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

Season 6 opens with a clear message for Technology Risk Management leaders: autonomy is no longer constrained by model capability, it is constrained by infrastructure discipline and auditable management controls.

In S6E1, Ori Wellington and Sam Jones translate NVIDIA’s CES 2026 signals into a practical blueprint for Autonomous IRM, defined as continuous, AI-enabled verification and response loops that operate within explicit policy boundaries and generate audit-grade evidence by design. As inference costs fall, “always-on” control validation becomes economically viable at enterprise scale. That shift forces a new operating model: humans stop chasing evidence and start adjudicating pre-enriched exceptions with decision provenance, context, and rollback paths already assembled.

The episode also surfaces the non-negotiables executives must plan for now:

• Agent runtime as infrastructure: a durable, logged, testable, reversible execution layer
• Agent control plane: standardized identity, permissions, tool access, evaluation, logging, and rollback to prevent agent sprawl
• Hybrid autonomy: centralized policy with localized execution for latency, sovereignty, and resilience
• Long-context assurance: end-to-end traceability that raises retention, privacy, and legal-hold stakes
• Simulation-based validation: replayable resilience testing and scenario libraries that become first-class assurance artifacts

The call to action is explicit: treat inference economics as a design variable, standardize management controls before scaling, and operationalize simulation as assurance.

Wheelhouse Advisors’ YouTube channel delivers fast, executive-ready insights on Integrated Risk Management. Explore short explainers, IRM Navigator research highlights, RiskTech Journal analysis, and conversations from The Risk Wheelhouse Podcast. We cover the issues that matter most to modern risk leaders. Every video is designed to sharpen decision making and strengthen resilience in a digital-first world. Subscribe at youtube.com/@wheelhouseadv.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

ServiceNow’s planned $7.75B all-cash acquisition of Armis (targeted to close in H2 2026) is easy to misfile as “just another cybersecurity deal.” In this episode, Wheelhouse Advisors’ Ori Wellington and Sam Jones explain why it is actually a defining IRM market signal, one that raises the standard for what “risk management at scale” should mean going into 2026 procurement cycles.

The core message is simple and disruptive: IRM is shifting from artifact completion to verified outcomes. Risk registers, control libraries, assessments, and attestations may prove process, but they do not prove exposure was reduced. The deal signals a move toward a unified operating model where real-time asset and exposure intelligence, prioritization logic, and remediation plus verification workflows increasingly sit on a single platform spine.

Ori and Sam break down the new credibility threshold for “continuous monitoring” using a practical three-layer test:

• Visibility: continuous discovery, classification, and exposure scoring across IT, OT, IoT, and medical devices
• Action: prioritized routing into owned remediation workflows with clear accountability and SLAs
• Verification: audit-grade proof remediation occurred and residual exposure is measured and trending down, not just tickets being closed

They also connect this shift to the next wave of agent-assisted operations, with a clear warning: automation without validation can scale noise faster than it scales risk reduction. The episode defines the audit-grade evidence trail IRM leaders should demand, including signal provenance, decision logic, action records, and verification that a fix held over time.

Finally, Ori and Sam outline three immediate actions IRM leaders should take now for 2026 planning: rewrite outcome metrics, require closed-loop proofs of value, and explicitly test openness to avoid proprietary data-model lock-in as platform consolidation accelerates.

This episode draws from Wheelhouse’s IRM50 OnWatch research note and the IRM50 Vendor Index, and references Wheelhouse’s recently published ERM Vendor Compass Report, where ServiceNow is profiled.

Listen now to recalibrate your evaluation standards before 2026 technology plans get locked.

Access the full IRM50 OnWatch note and more IRM50 research by subscribing at rtj-bridge.com.

Wheelhouse Advisors’ YouTube channel delivers fast, executive-ready insights on Integrated Risk Management. Explore short explainers, IRM Navigator research highlights, RiskTech Journal analysis, and conversations from The Risk Wheelhouse Podcast. We cover the issues that matter most to modern risk leaders. Every video is designed to sharpen decision making and strengthen resilience in a digital-first world. Subscribe at youtube.com/@wheelhouseadv.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

Most ERM programs are still built to prove activity, not to produce decisions. In 2025, that gap is becoming visible at the board level, and it is getting punished. The new performance standard is measurable: time to decision and time to evidence. If your ERM platform runs on annual cycles and manual synthesis, you are not steering the enterprise, you are documenting the past.

In this episode, we unpack the 2025 IRM Navigator™ Vendor Compass for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and explain why ERM must operate as the enterprise decision layer: operationalizing risk appetite into quantified thresholds, maintaining a living scenario portfolio, and reusing verified evidence from ORM, TRM, and GRC to trigger defensible, board-grade actions.

We walk through the IRM Navigator™ Model and place ERM at the Goals integration point, where strategic ambition becomes decision routines. Then we decode our Vendor Compass: two axes, solution coverage and level of integration, reveal which platforms can support executive decision cadence and unify evidence with provenance. You will also hear how to interpret tiers through a maturity lens, from Integrators (Archer, Diligent) to Accelerators (ServiceNow, Riskonnect, IBM OpenPages) to Pace Setters (LogicGate, Workiva).

We also introduce VC Sonar for ERM, a forward-looking scan of specialized signal providers and integration enablers that can materially shorten time to evidence and accelerate the path from extended toward autonomous IRM.

Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: which board decision is consistently slow because the evidence is still fragmented?

Wheelhouse Advisors’ YouTube channel delivers fast, executive-ready insights on Integrated Risk Management. Explore short explainers, IRM Navigator research highlights, RiskTech Journal analysis, and conversations from The Risk Wheelhouse Podcast. We cover the issues that matter most to modern risk leaders. Every video is designed to sharpen decision making and strengthen resilience in a digital-first world. Subscribe at youtube.com/@wheelhouseadv.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

Feeling lost in a sea of “next‑gen” risk tools that all promise unified visibility and maturity? We break the cycle of flashy demos and stalled implementations with a practical, research‑backed way to evaluate vendors and build a roadmap that actually advances your program. Anchored by the IRM Navigator Curve from Wheelhouse Advisors, we chart the journey from fragmented, audit‑driven dysfunction to a destination we call risk agency, where human judgment and machine action work together within clear guardrails.

We unpack the five maturity levels—foundational, coordinated, embedded, extended, autonomous—and show how progress depends on investing across four domains in sequence: GRC for policies, ERM for goals, ORM for processes, and TRM for assets and telemetry. The core message is simple and urgent: you cannot buy your way into maturity. Without unified policies, goals, and workflows, advanced tech becomes an expensive documentation tool. To cut through marketing noise, we share a two‑minute, three‑question diagnostic that slots any vendor: 1) which domain does it improve next, 2) does it unify or deepen silos, and 3) does it reduce work or only document it. Then we map real‑world vendor profiles to the curve to illustrate exactly where each solution can take you.

You’ll leave with a decision framework that drives strategic budgeting, prevents lateral moves into better silos, and focuses every purchase on measurable progress. We also point to Vendor Compass and Sonar research from Wheelhouse Advisors that assess market leaders and innovators like Riskonnect, ServiceNow, OneTrust, Archer, and top consultancies through this lens. Ready to replace feature checklists with a roadmap to risk agency? Follow, share with your team, and tell us where your program sits on the curve and what’s blocking your next step.

Wheelhouse Advisors’ YouTube channel delivers fast, executive-ready insights on Integrated Risk Management. Explore short explainers, IRM Navigator research highlights, RiskTech Journal analysis, and conversations from The Risk Wheelhouse Podcast. We cover the issues that matter most to modern risk leaders. Every video is designed to sharpen decision making and strengthen resilience in a digital-first world. Subscribe at youtube.com/@wheelhouseadv.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

A hard truth drives this conversation: leaders are seeing the risks but not making the moves. We unpack the 76–42–22 drop-off, visibility to engagement to action, and show why the real bottleneck isn’t data, it’s decision architecture. If your board keeps asking for tighter numbers and firmer timelines, you’re living the reporting plateau. Precision can be counterproductive for emerging risks: it invites model debates, signals high-cost commitments, and rationalizes delay.

We walk through a better path built on solution options. Instead of fear-based dashboards, bring low regret actions that borrow existing budgets, quantify the cost of waiting, and sequence work across quarters. A simple shift to training three cross-functional leads on new AI rules, wiring KRIs to a pilot, and setting a Q3 decision point turns a vague threat into a paced plan. Boards respond to choices and trade-offs, not speculative confidence intervals.

To make this repeatable, we use the IRM Navigator model: GRC, ERM, ORM, and TRM working in balance. ERM ties risks to growth, margin, and launch timelines so decisions map to value. ORM surfaces real-time KRIs and near misses to anchor action in reality. TRM connects controls to live telemetry, enabling continuous monitoring and swift technical adjustments. GRC provides the rigor to document, test, and assure. Together, the four domains deliver PRAC: performance, resilience, assurance, and compliance without sacrificing speed.

We share a concrete action plan: audit your investment asymmetry, kill problem-precision packets, adopt solution-options reporting, wire ORM and TRM into analysis, and measure success by decision velocity. Vendors and advisors are shifting too, judged by how quickly they convert a signal into a board-approved step. If you want your organization to move when the stakes are highest, build the emerging risk reflex now.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague who owns risk or strategy, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway. What low regret move will you make this quarter?

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

The latest episode of The Risk Wheelhouse tackles one of the strangest sights in this year’s risk technology landscape. The 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Governance, Risk, and Compliance arrives with an empty Visionaries quadrant. No challengers, no upstarts, just silence where innovation used to live. Rather than treating this as a warning sign, Ori Wellington and Sam Jones explain why the quiet is a signal that GRC has finally stabilized into what it was always best suited to be: the institutional assurance backbone that proves what happened, preserves the evidence, and keeps auditors, regulators, and boards on solid ground.

From there, they draw a clear line between GRC’s retrospective role and the forward-looking mandate of Integrated Risk Management. The conversation traces how GRC has narrowed to serve assurance leaders, why verification alone cannot answer questions about resilience and performance, and how IRM steps in as the unifying management layer that connects ERM, ORM, TRM, and GRC. Along the way, Ori and Sam unpack the PRAC model, position technology risk as the binding agent across the stack, and introduce “assurance intelligence” as the capability that turns static audit results into real-time decision input. A concrete firewall example shows what it looks like to move from “48 of 50 passed last quarter” to “our resilience score just dropped and we need action today.”

If you own risk, audit, compliance, or technology strategy, this episode will help you reframe GRC as essential infrastructure rather than a silver bullet platform. You will come away with a clearer understanding of why the Visionaries disappeared, how IRM now carries the integration agenda, and what it will take to move from evidence on paper to assurance that actually shapes decisions. For greater insights, read Wheelhouse Advisors’ IRM Navigator™ Vendor Compass for Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) - 2025 Edition.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.

The ground under GRC is shifting, and it’s not subtle. We break down how unified integrated risk management is replacing checklist compliance with an operating model that ties performance, resilience, assurance, and compliance together. From AI governance to ESG at the board level, we follow the money, the deals, and the data to show where risk management is actually going—and how to get there without drowning in spreadsheets.

We dive into why AI governance is now table stakes for any serious IRM platform, what an effective AI registry and dynamic risk assessment look like, and how automated compliance mapping to the NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, and the EU AI Act changes daily work. Along the way, we unpack recent moves like AuditBoard’s AI-focused acquisition and its expanded alliance with a major consultancy, illustrating why services plus software has become the adoption formula. On the ESG front, partnerships that link board reporting with carbon accounting signal a deeper integration of climate and sustainability data into operational risk and financial performance.

For leaders in regulated industries, we highlight practical gains from automated evidence collection, pre-built control content, and faster audit cycles—and we hammer on outcome proof as the only real test of integration. You’ll leave with three actionable steps: treat AI governance as foundational, demand verified customer outcomes, and pair your platform with expert implementation to deliver value in 90 days. We close by exploring the next frontier: agentic AI for continuous control monitoring, and the new risks that come when machines start guarding the machines. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns risk or audit, and leave a review telling us the one metric you need to trust a platform’s integration.

Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform—whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Please contact us directly at info@wheelhouseadvisors.com or feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn and X.com.

Visit www.therisktechjournal.com and www.rtj-bridge.com to learn more about the topics discussed in today's episode.